Tag: G.S. Modena

John Pierce is one of the world's great sports photographers, he's a friend of VeloVeritas and in our site's best tradition, the man can RANT about the sport he's been a part of for 50 years. In Part Three, our final chat with John, he looks at what changes he would bring if he were elected President of the UCI (we'd vote for him!), tells us about his favourite and most photogenic riders, ponders what really was in Lance's bottom bracket, and gives us amateur photographers some tips of the trade.

So there I was in Berlin and it's the ladies’ Six Day - well, three days, actually - and I hear one of the lasses waiting to go to the line speaking in a good Lancashire accent. Check the numbers, #7: Hannah Walker, GB.

The Friday evening prior to the Grand Depart at Mont-Saint-Michel, we're in the Amritsar Indian restaurant in Kirkcaldy – Callum, Dave and I agree that Cav has won his last Tour de France stage, Kittel and Greipel will be the men, and that the 32 stage wins record of Merckx is safe – as is Hinault’s second spot on 28 stage wins. Mark will have to be happy with his 26 bouquets. Not for the first or last time, the little chap from the middle of the Irish Sea made us eat our words; "Cav can never win Milan-Sanremo..."

We're at Paris - Roubaix 2007 and it's more like July in San Trop than spring in Northern France. We're in Wallers to take-in cobble sectors 19 and 17, both of which are on the outskirts of the village but at different ends, we had thought about watching at sector 18, Arenberg, but half of France has the same idea, it's heaving, and we have to get up to the finish "soon-as" after we've cobble-watched.

A Hard "Easy" Day. Yesterday was always going to be the day that the breakaway succeeded. The profile of the course and the stages on the days either side of it meant that neither the GC nor the sprinter teams would be interested. It wasn’t hard enough to separate the GC lads, but wasn’t easy enough for the sprinters to make it to the finish with the main bunch.

From Ponteareas to Sanxenxo and it's Degenkolb! He thrust four fingers into the air and that was that. Bouhanni was closer than he has been before, Bennati and The Shack didn’t do much wrong, but the Argos man has the head and the legs.